Umandh

The Umandh are the indigenous species of Emesh, radically non-humanoid in form. They stand well over nine feet on three radial legs, their bodies encased in scaly, stone-hard exoskeleton. Their upper surface carries waving tentacles and finer cilia — each as wide as a human arm and nearly three times as long, capable of carrying large loads using carrying bars. Their mouths are at the crown of their heads, surrounded by tendrils that function as tongues, and they perceive the world through hearing rather than sight. The lining of their trunk is studded with small fang-like projections. They excrete translucent golden slaver, and when mortally wounded their flesh releases a yellow glutinous fluid of intense foul smell. They wear thick metal collars tight about their midsections as marks of enslaved status, the metal cutting progressively deeper into their flesh over time. They are linked communally — a blow to one translates as a message to the others — and produce a collective droning harmony that resonates through the bones of anyone nearby and can shift in pitch and character; individual voices can reach a high shriek.

The Umandh do not use language in any grammatical sense. They are smarter in packs but not much smarter than chimpanzees, and their total known signal repertoire amounts to only a few dozen harmonic cues, including expressions equivalent to apology, requests for care for injured companions, and expressions of pain. The communications tablet used by overseers does not translate language but spoofs their signals, teaching them to obey through conditioning rather than communication. The Umandh communicate through a system of story-knot bone chimes and non-linear anaglyphs — symbols drawn as interlocking bubble-like circles — which may function as writing, art, or maps. These anaglyphs use relative size and position of logograms to convey grammar, structurally parallel to Cielcin nonlinear calligraphy. Tor Philemon's theory of 'Unnatural Grammars' characterizes the Umandh's communication as more analogous to the songs of ancient dolphins than to true language. Despite their limited cognition, the Umandh create accretive structures from salvaged debris at their alienage settlements.

The Umandh predate human settlement of Emesh entirely, making them the planet's original inhabitants. During first contact under the Norman settlers, they engaged in guerrilla fighting, dragging Norman fishing junks under at sea. Approximately 1,743 Umandh are held at Ulakiel and approximately 8 million exist globally on Emesh. They are held as coloni slaves by the Fishers Guild, working in fish-processing warehouses and other labor. House Mataro keeps several hundred in the palace. Under the current colonial system they are held as slaves across the planet, working as aquatic fish herders, dock laborers, and at various palace and estate tasks. The Chantry demands their native culture be obliterated under the ancient terraforming agreement with House Mataro. The Umandh appear to understand spoken human language: when Count Mataro identified himself as their lord during a warehouse inspection, their droning changed pitch, which triggered an uprising. The rebellion was ferocious: Umandh swarmed the count's party, with one crushing a lictor in armor hard enough to crack bones; all Umandh in the warehouse were killed in the suppression. A previous Umandh population was sold offworld as a 'breeding population.' Their story-knot bone chimes and circular anaglyph symbols are visually similar to the carved glyphs found throughout the Calagah ruins — an observation that initially suggested the Umandh built the site, but the ruins' age of nearly a million years rules them out completely, as the Umandh themselves are only approximately 500,000 years from the evolutionary womb. Their anaglyphs are best understood as imperfect cultural imitations of the Quiet's markings. Ulakiel hosts one of their largest alienage settlements.